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world through the vacant stupor of resignation.
Most often, it was difficult to tell male from female; their worldly
bodies, an everlasting source of shame, were hidden by bulky garments like
those the priests of the Order wore. Further reflecting the Order's
teachings, only the sinful were shown naked, so that all could see their
detestable cankerous bodies.
The carvings represented man as helpless, doomed by the inadequacy of
his intellect to suffer every blow of existence.
Most of the sculptors, Richard suspected, feared to be questioned, or
even tortured, and so repeated the view that man was to be carved accepting
his vile nature, thus earning his reward only through death. The carvings
were meant to assure the masses that this was the only proper goal for which
man could hope. Richard knew that a few of the carvers vehemently believed
such teachings. He was always careful of what he said around them.
"Ah, Richard, I wish you could see beautiful statues, instead of
today's scourge."
"I have seen statues of great beauty," Richard softly assured the man.
"Have you? I'm so glad. People should see those things, not this,
this"-he waved a hand toward the rising walls of the Retreat-"this evil in
the guise of goodness."
"So you will one day carve such beauty?"
"I don't know, Richard," he finally admitted. "The Order takes
everything. They say that the individual is of no importance except inasmuch
as he can contribute to the good of others. They take what art can be, the
lifeblood of the soul, and turn it to poison, turn it to death."
Victor smiled wistfully. "This way, as it is, I can enjoy the beautiful
statue inside the stone."
"I understand, Victor-I really do. The way you describe it, I can see
it, too."
"We will both enjoy my statue the way it is, then." Victor took his
hand from the stone and pointed to the base. "Besides, you see there? There
is an imperfection in the stone. It runs all the way through. That is why I
could afford this piece of marble-because it has this flaw. Were most anyone
to carve this, it would endanger the stone. If not done just right, and with
the flaw taken in mind, the entire piece could easily shatter. I have never
been able to think of how to carve this stone to take advantage of its
beauty, but to also avoid the flaw."
"Perhaps, someday, it will come to you how to carve the stone, to
create a thing of nobility."
"Nobility. Ali, but wouldn't that be something-the most sublime form of
beauty." He shook his head. "But I will not do it. Not unless the revolt
comes."
"Revolt?"
Victor's careful gaze swept the hillside through the open door. "The
revolt. It will come. The Order cannot stand-evil cannot stand, not forever,
anyway. In my homeland, when I was young, there used to be beauty, and there
used to be freedom. They were shamed into giving up their lives, their
freedom, bit by bit, to the cause of fairness to all men. People didn't know
what they had, and let freedom slip away for nothing but the hollow promise
of a better world, a world without effort, without struggle to achieve,
without productive work. It was always someone else who would do these
things, who would provide, who would make their lives easy.
"We used to be a land of abundance. Now, what food is grown, rots,
while it awaits committees to decide who should have it, who should move it,
and what it should cost. Meanwhile, people starve.
"Insurgents, those disloyal to the Order, are blamed for all the
starvation and strife that slowly destroys us, and so ever more people are
arrested and put to death. We are a land of death. The Order continually
proclaims its feelings for mankind, but their ways can but cultivate death.
On my way here, I have seen corpses by the thousands go uncounted and
unburied. The New World is blamed for every ill, every failure, and young
men, eager to smite their oppressors, march off to war.
"Many people, though, have come to see the truth. They, and the
children of these people-me, and others like me-hunger for freedom to live
our own lives, rather than be slaves to the Order and their reign of death.
There is unrest in my homeland, as there is here. A revolt is coming."
"Unrest? Here? I've seen no unrest."
Victor smiled a sly smile. "Those with revolt in their hearts do not
show their true feelings. The Order, always fearful of insurrection,
tortures confessions from those they wrongly arrest. Every day more are put
to death. Those who want things to change know better than to make
themselves targets before the time has come. Someday, Richard, revolt will
come."
Richard shook his head. "I don't know, Victor. Revolt takes resolve. I
don't think such real resolve exists."
"You have seen people who are unhappy with the way things are. Ishaq,
those at the foundries, my men and me. All those you deal with, other than
the officials you bribe, hunger for change." Victor lifted an eyebrow at
Richard. "Not one of them complains to any board or committee about what you
do. You may want nothing to do with it, as I believe is your right, but
there are those who listen to the whispers of the freedom to the north."
Richard tensed. "Freedom to the north?"
Victor nodded solemnly. "They speak of a savior: Richard Rahl. He leads
them in the fight for freedom. They say that this Richard Rahl will bring us
our revolt."
Had it not all been so overwhelmingly tragic, Richard would have burst
out laughing.
"How do you know this Rahl character is worth following?"
Victor fixed Richard with a look that Richard remembered from the first
time he met the blacksmith.
"You can judge a man by his enemies. Richard Rahl is hated by the
emperor, and by Brother Narev, and by his disciples, as no other man is
hated. He is the one. He bears the torch of revolution."
Richard could muster only a desolate smile. "He is but a man, my
friend. Don't worship a man. Worship his cause, but not him."
Victor's glare, so full of his emotion, his burning hunger for freedom,
turned back to his wolfish grin.
"Ah, but that is what Richard Rahl would say. That is why he is the
one."
Richard thought it would be best to change the subject. He saw that it
was getting light.
"Well, I have to get going. I'm sure you'll figure out what to do with
the stone, Victor. It will come to you when the time is right."
The blacksmith feigned a scowl, but it was a poor spoof of the very
real one that had just departed. "That is always what I thought, too."
Richard scratched his head. "Have you ever carved anything Victor?"
"No, nothing."
"Are you sure you are able to carve? That you have the ability?"
Victor tapped his temple, as if to dissuade a skeptic. "In here I have
ability. In here I have beauty. That is all that matters to me. If I never
touch steel to this stone, then I will always have the beauty of what it
could be, and that, the Order can never take away from me."
Nicci wiped the sweat off her brow as she went down the line, checking
to see if her clothes were dry. Summer was only around the corner, and it
was already hot. Her back hurt from her earlier work at the washtub and
various other chores. The other women were chatting in the warm sunshine.
They occasionally giggled over some quirk that one of them, after a round of
amiable urging, would divulge about her husband. Everyone in the building,
it seemed, had begun coming alive along with the new spring growth.
Nicci knew that spring had nothing to do with it.
That knowledge drew frustration up from her darkest recesses. She
couldn't figure out how Richard did it. No matter how hard she tried, she
just couldn't unravel the knot he seemed to tie around everything. She was
beginning to believe that if she took him down into the deepest cave she
could find, the sunlight would make its way into the darkest recesses to
shine on him. She would think it was some kind of magical luck, except she
knew beyond doubt that he had not used any magic whatsoever.
The backyard, such an overgrown tangled place, so filthy, with piles of
scrap and garbage, was now a garden. The men who lived in the building,
after they came home from work, had rid the yard of the refuse. Even several
of the ones who didn't work had come out of their rooms to help cart away an
item or two. After it was cleared out,- the women of the building had turned
the soil and planted a garden. They were going to have vegetables.
Vegetables! There was talk of getting a few chickens.
The single latrine off in the back corner, so overused and so foul, was
now two privies in good repair. Now, there was rarely a wait to use a privy
and there were no more urgent pleas or frayed tempers. Kamil and Nabbi had
helped Richard build them-partly out of scraps of lumber salvaged from the
refuse piles in the yard, before they were hauled away, and some they
collected from other rubbish heaps.
Nicci had hardly believed her eyes when she had seen Kamil and Nabbi-in
shirts---digging the holes for the new privies. Everyone thanked them
profusely. The two toughs beamed with pride.
The outdoor cooking hearth had been repaired, so the women could set
more pots in it and cook at the same time, requiring less wood to be hauled.
Richard and some of the other men of the building built stands for the
washtubs, so the wives wouldn't have to bend so far or chafe their knees
raw. The men made a simple roof of canvas salvaged from the refuse so that
the women could cook and wash without getting wet when it rained.
The people in the buildings to either side, at first surly and
suspicious of the activity, began asking curt questions. Richard, Kamil, and
Nabbi went over and explained what they had done, and how they could put
their place in shape, too, and even helped them get started. Nicci had
yelled at Richard for spending his time at
other people's places. He said that she was the one who had told him
that it was his duty to help others. Nicci had no answer-at least, none that
made any sense so as she could say it aloud and not sound a fool.
When Richard showed people how to improve their homes, he didn't
lecture, or teach, but rather, somehow-Nicci couldn't understand how-managed
to infect them with his enthusiasm. He hadn't told them what to do, but
rather he'd made them pant to figure out for themselves how they could make
things better for themselves. Everybody took a liking to Richard. It made
her growl under her breath.
Nicci collected her washing in the woven basket Richard had shown the
women of the building how to make from thin strips of wood. Nicci had to
admit that the basket was easy enough to make, and a better way to lug
clothes.
She climbed the sturdy stairs-stairs that she'd once thought would be
the end of her. The hallway inside was spotless. The floors had been washed.
Somewhere; Richard had come up with ingredients for paint, and the men had a
grand time of mixing it up and painting over the stains on the walls. One of
the men in the building knew about roofs, so he fixed the roof so it
wouldn't leak and stain the walls again.
As Nicci walked down the hall, she saw Gadi, without his shirt, sitting
up the stairway, in the shadows. He was using his big knife to whittle at a
piece of wood and in so doing make clear his dangerous nature. Later, the
women living i31 the building would tsk and clean it up. Gadi, not happy
about people nagging at him of late, leered down at her. She now had
something for him to leer at, now that she had gained her weight back.
Richard's second job at night enabled him to be able to afford more
food. He brought home things she had missed for months-chicken, oil, spices,
bacon, cheese, and eggs. She could never find such things in the city
stores, Nicci had thought they sold the same food everywhere in the city
shops, but Richard's travels while delivering things, he said, took him to
places where they sold a wider variety of food.
Kamil and Nabbi, sitting on the front steps, saw her through the open
door. They stood and bowed politely as she came down the hall.
"Good evening, Mrs. Cypher," Kamil said.
"Could we help you carry that?" Nabbi asked.
She found it all the more irritating because she knew for a fact that
they were sincere; they liked her because she was Richard's wife.
"Thank you, no. I'm there, now."
They held the door for her and closed it behind her when she had passed
into her room.
She thought of them as Richard's soldiers. He seemed to have a private
army of people who broke into grins when they saw him coming. Most people
seemed only too pleased to do whatever they thought Richard might like done.
Kamil and Nabbi would have washed diapers, if he asked it, for the chance to
ride with him at night in the wagon as he picked up and delivered things
around Altur'Rang. He only rarely took them with him, saying that he could
get in trouble with the workers' group. The youths didn't want Richard to
get in trouble and lose his job, so they patiently waited for the rare times
when he tilted his head for them to come along.
Their room had been transformed. The ceiling had been cleaned and
whitewashed. The flyblown walls had been scrubbed and painted a salmon
color-a color she had picked, thinking that Richard would not possibly be
able to come up with the rare ingredients needed for the color. The walls
were now mockingly salmon.
One day a man had shown up with an armload of tools. Kamil said that
Richard had sent him over to fix their room. The man spoke a language Nicci
didn't understand. He waved his arms a lot and chattered and laughed
good-naturedly, as if she must understand at least a little of what he told
her. He pointed around at walls and asked questions. She hadn't the foggiest
notion of what he was there to do.
She suspected he had come to fix the wobbly table. She rapped the top
with the flat of her hand and then showed him how it wobbled. He nodded and
grinned and chattered. She finally left him to his work while she went to
the city store to wait in line to buy bread. She was there the entire
morning. In the afternoon, she waited in line for millet.
When Nicci finally returned home, the man was gone. The old window,
broken and not only long painted over but also painted shut, had new glass,
and it was raised. And, they had a new window in the other wall. Both
windows were open. A cool cross-breeze let fresh air into the stuffy room.
Nicci stood in the center of the room, stunned to be looking through
the window to the building next door. She gaped out the window in the wall
where there had been no window before. She was able to see the street. Mrs.
Sha'Rim, from next door, had smiled and waved as she'd walked past.
Nicci set down the wash basket and opened the window at the side, to
get some air into the stifling room. She pushed the curtains back. With
windows you could see though, she had decided that curtains were in order.
Richard somehow got her fabric. When she was finished, he told her she had
done a wonderful job. Nicci found herself grinning just as everyone else
grinned when Richard told them they had done well.
She had brought Richard to the worst place in the Old World, to the
worst build
ing she could find, and he somehow ended up making everything better
just as she had insisted was his duty.
But she had never meant it to be like this.
She didn't know what she'd meant.
She only knew that she lived for the times Richard was with her. Even
though she knew he hated her, and wanted nothing more than to be away from
her and back with his Kahlan, Nicci could not help feeling her heart rise
into her throat when he came home. Through the link to Kahlan, she thought
that at times she could feel the woman's longing for him. Every inch of her
ached with understanding of Kahlan's longing.
The room grew darker as she waited. Life didn't start until Richard
came home. As the daylight faded, the lamplight took its place. They had a
real lamp, now, not just a wick through a wooden button floating in linseed
oil.
The door opened. Richard put one foot inside. He was speaking to Kamil
as the young man was going off to his family's place upstairs. It was
getting late. Finally, still smiling, Richard came in and shut the door. The
smile faded, as it always did.
He held out a burlap sack. "I came across some onions, carrots, and
some pork. I thought you might like to make a stew."
Nicci lifted a hand weekly toward the millet she had spent the
afternoon in line to buy. It had bugs in it. It was moldy.
"I bought millet. I thought I would make you a soup."
Richard shrugged. "If you prefer. Your millet soup saw us through some
pretty lean times."
Nicci felt that flash of pride that he had acknowledged what she had
done as valuable.
She shut the windows. It was dark out. With her back to the windows as
she watched him, she closed the curtains tight.
Richard stood in the center of the room, watching her, a puzzled frown
creasing his brow between his eyes. Nicci closed the distance to him. She
was aware of the exposed flesh of her bosom rising and falling above the top
of her black dress. Gadi had just been staring at her bosom. She wanted
Richard to stare at her like that. Richard watched only her eyes.
Her fingers tightened around his muscled arms.
"Make love to me," she whispered.
His brow drew down. "What?"
"Richard, I want you to make love to me. Now."
He appraised her eyes for an eternity. Her heart thundered in her ears.
Every fiber of her being screamed out for him to take her. She teetered on
the edge, waiting, her life suspended in the exquisite anguish of
expectation.
His voice came, not at all harsh. If anything, it was tender, but it
was also resolute. "No."
Nicci felt as if a thousand needles of ice were dancing up her arms.
His refusal stunned her. No man had ever refused her.
It hurt to her core--worse than anything Jagang or any other man had
ever done. She had thought . . .
Blood rushed to her face, melting the ice in a flash of heat. Nicci
flung open the door. "Come out into the hall and wait," she commanded in a
shaky voice.
He was standing in the center of their room, looking into her eyes. The
lamp on the table cast harsh shadows across his face. His shoulders looked
so broad, tapering down to his waist, a waist she ached to encircle with her
arms. She wanted to scream. Instead she spoke softly, but with authority he
could not mistake.
"You will come out into the hall and wait, or. . ."
Nicci made a snipping gesture with two fingers.
By the look in his eyes, he knew that she was not bluffing. Kahlan's
life now hung by a thread, and if he didn't do as she ordered, she would not
hesitate to cut that thread.
With his gray eyes on her the whole time, Richard stepped out into the
hall. She put a finger to the center of his chest and pushed until his back
was against the wall beside their door.
"You are to wait right there, on that spot, until I tell you that you
may move from it." She gritted her teeth. "Or Kahlan will die. Do you
understand?"
"Nicci, you're better than this. Think about what you're-"
"Or Kahlan will die. Do you understand?"
He let out a breath. "Yes."
Nicci marched to the stairwell. Gadi stood halfway up the stairs, his
dark eyes watching. He arrogantly descended toward her, until he was at the
bottom with her. He had a fine form, she supposed, displayed as it was
without a shirt. He was close enough to feel the heat of him.
Nicci looked him in the eye. He was the same height as she.
"I want you to have sex with me."
"What?"
"My husband does not adequately take care of my needs. I wish you to."
A smirk spread on his face as his gaze slid to Richard. He looked back
at her bosom, at what was within his power to possess.
Gadi was young and bold and stupid enough to believe himself
irresistible to her, to believe his puerile primping had swept away her
inhibitions to the point of helpless lust for what he had to offer.
One arm pulled her to him. With his other hand, he swept her hair out
of the way. His thin lips kissed her neck. When his teeth raked her flesh,
she moaned to encourage him to be rough. The last thing in the world she
wanted was tenderness. There could be no retribution in tenderness.
Tenderness would not cleave Richard's soul with anguish. Tenderness would
not hurt him.
Gadi's hands squeezed her bottom, pulling her hard against his groin.
He moved against her in a lewd fashion. She panted in his ear to encourage
his confidence in his dominion over her body.
"Tell me why."
"I'm sick of his gentle nature, his kind touch, his caring ways. That's
not what a real woman needs. I want him to know what a real man can do-I
want what he can't give me."
She nearly cried out in pain when he twisted her nipple.
"Yeah?"
"Yes. I want what a real man like you can do for a woman."
His rough hands squeezed her breast. She performed another moan. He
smiled.
"My pleasure."
His smirk sickened her. "No, mine," she whispered in breathy
submission.
He cast one more hateful glare at Richard, then bent to slip a hand up
the front of her dress to see if she really meant it, if she would really
let him have his way with her. His hand slid up the inside of her bare
thigh, commanding surrender. She obediently parted her legs for him.
Nicci held on to his shoulders as he groped her. His upper lip curled
in a haughty grin. His fingers worked without mercy. Her eyes watered. She
trembled and bit the inside of her cheek to hold back her cry. Mistaking
agony for lust, he was inflamed by her whimpers.
Jagang and his friend Kadar Kardeef, to name but a few, took her
without her consent. None of it had ever approached the sense of violation
she felt at that moment as she stood there in the hall letting that smirking
little thug do to her as he would.
She forced her hand down between them and seized him.
"Gadi, are you afraid of Richard? Are are you man enough to take me
while he is outside the room, listening to us, knowing you are his better
with me?"
"Afraid? Of him?" His voice came in a husky growl. "Just tell me when."
"Right now. I need it from you now, Gadi."
"I thought so."
Nicci smiled inwardly at his solemn look of lust.
"Say `please,' first, you little whore."
"Please." She ached only to crush his worthless skull. "Please, Gadi."
With his arm around her waist, Gadi gave Richard a taunting sneer as he
swaggered past. Nicci's fingers on Gadi's back urged him to go on into their
room and wait. He smiled over his shoulder and did as she wanted. Nicci
paused to glare into Richard's eyes.
"We are linked. What happens to me, happens to her. I hope you are not
foolish enough to think I wouldn't make you sorry for the rest of your days
if you don't stay right there. I swear to you, she will die this night if
you don't stay there."
"Nicci, please don't do this. You're only hurting yourself."
His voice was so tender, so compassionate. She almost threw her arms
around him to beg him to stop her . . . but the flame of his refusal still
burned shamefully in her heart.
Nicci turned back from the doorway and gave Richard a vicious grin. "I
hope your Kahlan enjoys this as much as I'm going to enjoy it. After
tonight, she will never believe in you again."
--]----
Kahlan gasped. Her eyes opened. She could only make out obscure shapes
in the swirling darkness. She gasped again.
A feeling she couldn't define, couldn't interpret, couldn't put a
nature to, welled up in her. It was something totally foreign, yet at the
same time bewitchingly familiar. Something inappropriate, yet longed for. It
filled her with a kind of passionate terror that undulated seductively to
indecent pleasure, pushing before it a sense of shapeless dread.
She felt the weight of a shadow over her.
Feelings and sensations she could not grasp or control inundated her
even as she fought them. Nothing seemed real. She gasped again at the crude
sensation. It confused her. It hurt, and at the same time she felt a kind of
wild hunger awakening.
It was as if Richard were there, in bed with her. It felt so good
again. She was panting. Her mouth was dry as dust.
In Richard's intimate embrace she had always felt a kind of expectant
delight that their shameless lust could never be completely sated-that there
was always a spark of something left to explore, to reach toward, to define.
She had always exalted in the idea of that endless quest for the
unattainable.
She drew a sharp breath. She felt herself in that headlong rush, now.
But this was something she had never imagined. Her fists clutched at
the sheets, her mouth opened in a silent scream against the ripping thrust
of pain.
This was not human. It made no sense. She gasped again in panic as the
most awful feelings burgeoned through her. She moaned at the horror of it,
at the hint of pleasure in it, and at the confusion of nearly enjoying the
sensation.
The realization came to her. She knew what this meant.
Tears stung her eyes. She rolled onto her side, torn between the joy of
feeling Richard, and the pain of knowing that Nicci was feeling him in this
way, too. She was slammed onto her back.
She gasped again, her eyes going wide, her whole body rigid.
She cried out at the pain. She twisted and struggled, covering her
breasts with her arms. Her eyes watered at agony she couldn't explain or
completely identify.
She missed Richard so much. She wanted him so badly it hurt.
She gave in to him, even in this, she surrendered herself to him. A low
wail escaped her throat.
Her muscles knotted as tight as oak roots. She was racked with wave
after wave of startling pain mixed with an unsatisfied longing that had
turned to revulsion. She couldn't get her breath.
She burst into tears as it ceased, her body finally able to move again,
but too exhausted to do so. She had hated every violent appalling brutal
second of it, and grieved that it had ended because she had at least felt
him.
She felt joy that she had so unexpectedly sensed him, and blind rage at
what it meant. She clutched the sheets in her fists as she wept
inconsolably.
"Mother Confessor?" A dark form slipped into the tent. "Mother
Confessor?"
It was Cara's whisper. Cara set a candle on the table. The light seemed
blindingly bright as Cara looked down. "Mother Confessor, are you all
right?"
Kahlan pulled a ragged breath. She was lying on her back in her bed,
tangled in her blanket. It was twisted around between her legs.
Maybe it was just a dream. She wished it was. She knew it wasn't.
Kahlan ran her fingers back into her hair as she sat up. "Cara-" It
came out as a choking sob.
Cara knelt on the ground beside her and gripped Kahlan's shoulders.
"What is it?"
Kahlan struggled to get her breath.
"What's wrong? What can I do? Are you hurt? Are you sick?"
"Oh, Cara . . . he's been with Nicci."
Cara held her at arms length, her face a picture of concern.
"What are you talking about? Who's been-"
Her words cut off when she realized what Kahlan meant.
Kahlan struggled against Cara's grip. "How could he-"
"She no doubt made him," Cara insisted. "He must have done it to save
your life. She would have had to threaten him."
Kahlan was shaking her head. "No, no. He was enjoying it too much. He
was like an animal. He never took me like that. He never acted . . . Oh,
Cara, he's fallen for her. He couldn't resist her any longer. He's-"
Cara shook her until Kahlan thought her teeth would come loose.
"Wake up! Open your eyes. Mother Confessor, wake up. You're half
asleep. You're still half dreaming."
Kahlan blinked as she looked around. She was panting, still getting her
breath. She had stopped crying.
Cara was right. It had happened, there was no doubt in Kahlan's mind,
but it had happened when she was sleeping, and in her sleep, it had taken
her unaware. She hadn't reacted rationally.
"You're right," Kahlan said in a voice hoarse from crying. Her nose was
stuffed up so that she could only breath through her mouth.
"Now," Cara said in a calm voice, "tell me what happened."
When she felt her face go red, Kahlan wished for the darkness. How
could she tell anyone what had happened? She wished Cara hadn't heard her.
"Well, through the link"-Kahlan swallowed-"I could sense that, that,
well, that Richard made love to Nicci."
Cara looked skeptical. "Did it feel like when, well, I mean, are you
sure? Could you tell it was him?"
Kahlan felt her face go a darker shade of red. "Not exactly, I guess. I
don't know." She covered her breasts. "I could feel his . . . his teeth on
me. He was biting .."
Cara scratched her head, averting her gaze, unsure how to frame her
question. Kahlan answered it for her.
"Richard never hurt me like that."
"Oh. Well then, it wasn't Richard."
"What do you mean it wasn't Richard? It had to be Richard."
"Did it? Would Richard want to make love to Nicci?"
"Cara-she could make him. Threaten him."
"Do you think Nicci is an honorable person?"
Kahlan frowned. "Nicci? Are you out of your mind?"
"There you go, then. Why must it be Richard? Nicci may have simply
found some man she had to have-some handsome farmboy. It could be nothing
more than that."
"Really? You think so?"
"You said it didn't seem like Richard. I mean, you were half asleep,
and in . . . shock. You said he never. . ."
Kahlan looked away. "No, I suppose not." She looked back at the
Mord-Sith in the dim light. "I'm sorry, Cara. Thank you for being here with
me. I'd not have liked it if it had been Zedd, or someone else. Thank you."
Cara smiled. "I think we'd best keep this between the two of us."
Kahlan nodded gratefully. "If Zedd ever started in asking all his
detailed questions about this, well, I'd die of embarrassment."
Kahlan realized then that Cara was wrapped in a blanket that was open
in the front enough to reveal that she was naked underneath. There was a
dark mark on the upper half of her breast. There were a few more, but faint.
Kahlan had seen Cara naked, and didn't recall there being any such mark on
her. In fact, except for her scars, her body was exasperatingly perfect.
Frowning, Kahlan gestured. "Cara, what's that there?"
Cara glanced down and then threw the blanket closed.
"It's, I mean, well, it's . . . just a bruise."
A love bruise-from a man's mouth.
"Is Benjamin over there in your tent with you?"
Cara got to her bare feet. "Mother Confessor, you are still half asleep
and having dreams. Go back to sleep."
Kahlan smiled as she watched Cara leave. The smile faded as she lay
back in her bed. In the quiet loneliness, her doubts crept back.
She cupped her breasts. Her nipples throbbed and ached. As she moved on
the bed a little, she winced as she only then began to realize how much she
hurt, and where.
She couldn't believe that, even in her sleep, a part of it had been . .
. She felt her face reddening again. She felt an overwhelming sense of shame
at what she had done.
No. She had done nothing. She was only sensing something through her
link to Nicci. It wasn't real. She hadn't really experienced it-Nicci had.
But Kahlan suffered the same injuries.
As she had at various times, Kahlan still felt that connection to Nicci
through the link, and an aching sort of caring about the woman. What had
happened left Kahlan feeling saddened. She felt that Nicci had so
desperately wanted . . . something.
Kahlan slipped her hand down between her legs. She flinched in pain as
she touched herself. She brought her fingers up to the candlelight. They
glistened with blood. There was a lot of blood.
Despite the burning pain of being torn inside, the confused
embarrassment, and the shadow of shame, she most of all felt a sense of
relief.
She knew without doubt: Cara was right, it had not been Richard.
Ann peered among the stand of birch trees crowded in the deep shadows
of cliffs for which the place was named. The dense wood was thick with the
trees, their peeling white bark covered with dark blotches making it
disorienting and difficult to make sense of anything. To become disoriented,
here, and wander into the wrong place, uninvited, was the last mistake you
would ever make.
It had been in her youth that she'd last come here, to the Healers of
Redcliff. She'd promised herself she would never return She'd promised the
healers as much, too. In the nearly thousand years since, she hoped they had
forgotten.
Few people knew of the place, and even fewer ever came hero--with good
reason.
The term "healers" was an odd and highly misleading designation for
such a dangerous lot, yet it wasn't entirely without merit. The Healers of
Redcliff weren't concerned with human ailments, but with the well-being of
things that mattered to them. And very odd things indeed mattered to them.
To tell the truth of it, after all this time, she would be surprised to find
them still in existence.
As much as she hoped their talents could help, and as desperately as
she needed help, she hoped to find that the healers no longer stalked the
Redcliff Wood.
"Visitooor. . ." hissed a teasing voice from the dim shadows in the
crags of the cliff off behind the trees.
Ann stood still. Cold sweat dotted her brow. Among the confusion of
lines and spots made by the trees, she could not make out what it was she
saw move. She didn't really need to see them. She had heard the voice. There
were no others like theirs. She swallowed, and tried to sound composed.
"Yes, I am a visitor. I'm glad to find you well."
"Only us few left," the voice said, echoing among the rock walls. "The
chiiiimes took most."
That was what Ann had feared . . . what she had hoped.
"I'm sorry," she lied.
"Tried," the voice said, moving through the trees. "Could not heal the
chiiiimes away."
She wondered if they could still heal at all, and how long they would
last.
"Comes sheeee for a healings?" teased a voice from the depths of the
jagged clefts to the other side.
"Come to let you look," she said, letting them know she had terms, too.
It would not be all their way.
"Costssss, you know."
Ann nodded. "Yes, I know."
She had tried everything else. Nothing had worked. She had no other
choice, at
least none she could think of. She was no longer sure if it mattered to
her what happened, if it mattered if she ever came out of the Redcliff Wood.
She was no longer sure if she had ever done any real good in her entire
life.
"Well?" she asked into the shadowy silence.
Something flashed back behind the trees, back in the shade under low
rock ledges, as if inviting her further along the path, deeper into the
twisting cleft in the mountains. Rubbing her knuckles, which still ached
from the burns long healed, she followed the path, and the rustle of brush.
Shortly, she came to a small gap its the trees. Back through that gap, she
could see the craggy opening of a cave.
Eyes watched from that dark maw.
"Comes sheeee in," the voice hissed.
In resignation, Ann let out a sigh as she stepped off the trail, and
into a place she had never forgotten, despite how much she had tried.
--]----
Kahlan's hair whipped around, lashing at her face. She gathered it in a
fist over the front of her armored shoulder as she made her way through the
hectic camp. Thunderstorms collided violently with the mountains at the east
side of the valley, throwing off lightning, thunder, and intermittent sheets
of rain. Sporadic gusts bent the trees, and their leaves shimmered as if
trembling in fright before the onslaught.
Usually, the camp was relatively quiet so as not to give any unwanted
information to the enemy. Now, the noise of camp breaking up was jarring by
contrast. The noise alone was enough to make her pulse race. If only that
were all.
As Kahlan hurried through what to the untrained eye would look like
mass confusion, Cara, in her red leather, shoved men out of the way to break
a clear path for the Mother Confessor. Kahlan knew better than to try to get
the Mord-Sith not to do it. At least it caused no harm. Most of the men,
when they saw Kahlan in her leather armor with a D'Haran sword at her hip
and the hilt of the Sword of Truth sticking up over her shoulder, moved out
of her way without Cam's help.
Horses nearby reared as they were being harnessed to a wagon. Men
shouted and cursed as they struggled to get the team under control. The
horses bellowed in protest. Other men ran through camp, leaping over fires
and gear as they rushed to deliver messages. Men sprang out of the way as
wagons sped along, splashing mud and water. A long column of lancers five
men wide was already marching off into the threatening gloom. Their
supporting archers were scrambling to fall in with them.
The path to the lodge was set with stones so people heading for it
would not have to walk in the mud, though one still had to run the gauntlet
of mosquitoes. Rain swept in just as Kahlan and Cara made the door. Zedd was
there, with Adie, General Meiffert and several of his officers, Verna, and
Warren. They were all loosely gathered around the table pulled to the center
of the room. Half a dozen maps lay atop one another on the table.
The mood in the room was tense.
"How long ago?" Kahlan asked without any greetings.
"Just now," General Meiffert said. "They're taking their time striking
camp. They're not organizing for an attack. They're simply forming up to
move out."
Kahlan rubbed her fingertips against her brow. "Any word on the
direction?"
The general shifted his posture, betraying his frustration. "The scouts
say that by all indications they're going north, but nothing more specific
than that, yet."
"They aren't coming after us?"
"They could always change course, or send an army over here, but right
now, it appears they aren't interested in coming in here after us."
"Jagang doesn't need to come after us," Warren said. Kahlan thought he
looked a little pale. Small wonder. She imagined they were all a little
pale. "Jagang has to know we are going to come at him: He's not going to
bother coming in here after us."
Kahlan couldn't dispute his logic. "If he goes north, he has to know
we're not going to sit here and wave good-bye."
The emperor had changed his tactics-again. Kahlan had never seen a
commander like him. Most military men had their preferred methods. If they
had once won a battle in a certain way, they would suffer a dozen losses
with the same tactics, thinking it had to work because it once had. Some
were limited by their intellect. Those were easy enough to read; they
usually waged an artless campaign, content to throw men into a meat grinder,
hoping to clog it with sheer numbers. Some leaders were clever, inventing
tactics as they went. Those often thought too much of themselves and ended
up on the point of a simple pike. Others slavishly went about using textbook
tactics, thinking of war as a kind of game, and that each side should oblige
the other by following rules.
Jagang was different. He learned to read his enemy. He held to no
favored method. After Kahlan had hit him with quick limited attacks driven
into the center of his camp, he learned the tactic and, instead of relying
on his overpowering numbers, sent the same kind of attack back at the
D'Haran army to good effect. Some men could be driven to making foolish
mistakes by shaming them. Jagang didn't make the same mistake twice. He
reined in his pride and changed his tactics again, not obliging Kahlan with
foolhardy counterattacks.
The D'Harans had still managed to carve him up. They had taken out
Imperial Order troops in unprecedented numbers. Their own losses, while
painful, were remarkably low considering what they had accomplished.
Winter, though, had killed far more of the enemy than anything Kahlan
and her men could conceive. The Imperial Order, being from far to the south,
was unfamiliar with and ill prepared for winter in the New World. Well over
half a million men had frozen to death. Several hundred thousand more had
succumbed to fevers and sickness from the harsh life in the field.
The winter alone had cost Jagang nearly three-quarters of a million
men. It was almost beyond comprehension.
Kahlan now commanded roughly three hundred thousand troops in the
southern reaches of the Midlands. Under ordinary circumstances, that would
be a force capable of crushing any enemy.
The men streaming up from the Old World had replaced the enemy losses
several times over. Jagang's army was now well over two and a half million
men. It grew by the day.
Jagang had been content to sit tight for the winter. Fighting in such
conditions was, for the most part, impossible. He had wisely waited out the
weather. When spring had come, he still sat. Apparently, he was smart enough
to know that warfare in spring mud was a deadly undertaking. In the muddy
season, you could lose your supply wagons if they got strung out. Streams
became impassable floods. Losing
wagons was a slow death by starvation. Cavalry were next to useless in
the mud. Losses to falls in a cavalry charge cost valuable mounts, to say
nothing of the men. Soldiers could make an attack, of course, but without
supporting services, it was likely to be a bloodbath for no real gain.
Jagang had sat out the spring mud. His minions had used the time to
spread the word about "Jagang the Just." Kahlan was infuriated when she got
reports, weeks after the fact, about "envoys of peace" who had shown up in
various cities throughout the Midlands, giving speeches about bringing the
world together for the good of all mankind. They promised piece and
prosperity, if they were welcomed into cities.
Now, with summer finally upon them, Jagang was beginning his campaign
anew. He planned his troops to now visit those cities his envoys had been
to.
The door burst open. It was not the wind, but Rikka. The Mord-Sith
looked like she hadn't slept in days.
Cara went to her side, to be ready to offer assistance if requested,
but didn't directly lend a hand for support. A Mord-Sith did not look
favorably upon help in front of others.
Rikka stepped up to the table, opposite Kahlan, and tossed two Agiel
down atop the map.
Kahlan closed her eyes for a moment, then looked up into Rikka's fierce
blue eyes. "What happened?"
"I don't know, Mother Confessor. I found their heads impaled on pikes.
Their Agiel were tied to the pikes."
Kahlan held her anger in check. "Are you satisfied, now, Rikka?"
"Galina and Solvig died as Mord-Sith would want to die."
"Galina and Solvig died for nothing, Rikka. After the first four, we
knew it wouldn't work. With the dream walker in their minds, the gifted are
not vulnerable to Mord-Sith in the way that would otherwise be the case."
"It could have been something else. If we can catch their gifted where
the MordSith can get at them, then we might be able to take them out. It's
worth the risk. Their gifted can cut down thousands of soldiers with a sweep
of their hand."
"I understand the wish, Rikka. Wishing, however, does not make it
possible. We have six dead Mord-Sith to show us the reality of what is. We
will not throw away the lives of any more because we refuse to recognize the
truth of it."
"I still think-"
"Those of us here have important things to decide; I don't have time
for this." Kahlan put her fists on the table and leaned toward the woman. "I
am the Mother Confessor, and the wife to Lord Rahl. You will do as I say or
you will leave. Do you understand?"
Rikka's blue eyes shifted to Cara. Cara stood as expressive as a stone.
Rikka looked back at Kahlan and let out a long sigh.
"I wish to remain with our forces and do my duty."
"Fine. Now, go get yourself something to eat while you still have a
Most often, it was difficult to tell male from female; their worldly
bodies, an everlasting source of shame, were hidden by bulky garments like
those the priests of the Order wore. Further reflecting the Order's
teachings, only the sinful were shown naked, so that all could see their
detestable cankerous bodies.
The carvings represented man as helpless, doomed by the inadequacy of
his intellect to suffer every blow of existence.
Most of the sculptors, Richard suspected, feared to be questioned, or
even tortured, and so repeated the view that man was to be carved accepting
his vile nature, thus earning his reward only through death. The carvings
were meant to assure the masses that this was the only proper goal for which
man could hope. Richard knew that a few of the carvers vehemently believed
such teachings. He was always careful of what he said around them.
"Ah, Richard, I wish you could see beautiful statues, instead of
today's scourge."
"I have seen statues of great beauty," Richard softly assured the man.
"Have you? I'm so glad. People should see those things, not this,
this"-he waved a hand toward the rising walls of the Retreat-"this evil in
the guise of goodness."
"So you will one day carve such beauty?"
"I don't know, Richard," he finally admitted. "The Order takes
everything. They say that the individual is of no importance except inasmuch
as he can contribute to the good of others. They take what art can be, the
lifeblood of the soul, and turn it to poison, turn it to death."
Victor smiled wistfully. "This way, as it is, I can enjoy the beautiful
statue inside the stone."
"I understand, Victor-I really do. The way you describe it, I can see
it, too."
"We will both enjoy my statue the way it is, then." Victor took his
hand from the stone and pointed to the base. "Besides, you see there? There
is an imperfection in the stone. It runs all the way through. That is why I
could afford this piece of marble-because it has this flaw. Were most anyone
to carve this, it would endanger the stone. If not done just right, and with
the flaw taken in mind, the entire piece could easily shatter. I have never
been able to think of how to carve this stone to take advantage of its
beauty, but to also avoid the flaw."
"Perhaps, someday, it will come to you how to carve the stone, to
create a thing of nobility."
"Nobility. Ali, but wouldn't that be something-the most sublime form of
beauty." He shook his head. "But I will not do it. Not unless the revolt
comes."
"Revolt?"
Victor's careful gaze swept the hillside through the open door. "The
revolt. It will come. The Order cannot stand-evil cannot stand, not forever,
anyway. In my homeland, when I was young, there used to be beauty, and there
used to be freedom. They were shamed into giving up their lives, their
freedom, bit by bit, to the cause of fairness to all men. People didn't know
what they had, and let freedom slip away for nothing but the hollow promise
of a better world, a world without effort, without struggle to achieve,
without productive work. It was always someone else who would do these
things, who would provide, who would make their lives easy.
"We used to be a land of abundance. Now, what food is grown, rots,
while it awaits committees to decide who should have it, who should move it,
and what it should cost. Meanwhile, people starve.
"Insurgents, those disloyal to the Order, are blamed for all the
starvation and strife that slowly destroys us, and so ever more people are
arrested and put to death. We are a land of death. The Order continually
proclaims its feelings for mankind, but their ways can but cultivate death.
On my way here, I have seen corpses by the thousands go uncounted and
unburied. The New World is blamed for every ill, every failure, and young
men, eager to smite their oppressors, march off to war.
"Many people, though, have come to see the truth. They, and the
children of these people-me, and others like me-hunger for freedom to live
our own lives, rather than be slaves to the Order and their reign of death.
There is unrest in my homeland, as there is here. A revolt is coming."
"Unrest? Here? I've seen no unrest."
Victor smiled a sly smile. "Those with revolt in their hearts do not
show their true feelings. The Order, always fearful of insurrection,
tortures confessions from those they wrongly arrest. Every day more are put
to death. Those who want things to change know better than to make
themselves targets before the time has come. Someday, Richard, revolt will
come."
Richard shook his head. "I don't know, Victor. Revolt takes resolve. I
don't think such real resolve exists."
"You have seen people who are unhappy with the way things are. Ishaq,
those at the foundries, my men and me. All those you deal with, other than
the officials you bribe, hunger for change." Victor lifted an eyebrow at
Richard. "Not one of them complains to any board or committee about what you
do. You may want nothing to do with it, as I believe is your right, but
there are those who listen to the whispers of the freedom to the north."
Richard tensed. "Freedom to the north?"
Victor nodded solemnly. "They speak of a savior: Richard Rahl. He leads
them in the fight for freedom. They say that this Richard Rahl will bring us
our revolt."
Had it not all been so overwhelmingly tragic, Richard would have burst
out laughing.
"How do you know this Rahl character is worth following?"
Victor fixed Richard with a look that Richard remembered from the first
time he met the blacksmith.
"You can judge a man by his enemies. Richard Rahl is hated by the
emperor, and by Brother Narev, and by his disciples, as no other man is
hated. He is the one. He bears the torch of revolution."
Richard could muster only a desolate smile. "He is but a man, my
friend. Don't worship a man. Worship his cause, but not him."
Victor's glare, so full of his emotion, his burning hunger for freedom,
turned back to his wolfish grin.
"Ah, but that is what Richard Rahl would say. That is why he is the
one."
Richard thought it would be best to change the subject. He saw that it
was getting light.
"Well, I have to get going. I'm sure you'll figure out what to do with
the stone, Victor. It will come to you when the time is right."
The blacksmith feigned a scowl, but it was a poor spoof of the very
real one that had just departed. "That is always what I thought, too."
Richard scratched his head. "Have you ever carved anything Victor?"
"No, nothing."
"Are you sure you are able to carve? That you have the ability?"
Victor tapped his temple, as if to dissuade a skeptic. "In here I have
ability. In here I have beauty. That is all that matters to me. If I never
touch steel to this stone, then I will always have the beauty of what it
could be, and that, the Order can never take away from me."
Nicci wiped the sweat off her brow as she went down the line, checking
to see if her clothes were dry. Summer was only around the corner, and it
was already hot. Her back hurt from her earlier work at the washtub and
various other chores. The other women were chatting in the warm sunshine.
They occasionally giggled over some quirk that one of them, after a round of
amiable urging, would divulge about her husband. Everyone in the building,
it seemed, had begun coming alive along with the new spring growth.
Nicci knew that spring had nothing to do with it.
That knowledge drew frustration up from her darkest recesses. She
couldn't figure out how Richard did it. No matter how hard she tried, she
just couldn't unravel the knot he seemed to tie around everything. She was
beginning to believe that if she took him down into the deepest cave she
could find, the sunlight would make its way into the darkest recesses to
shine on him. She would think it was some kind of magical luck, except she
knew beyond doubt that he had not used any magic whatsoever.
The backyard, such an overgrown tangled place, so filthy, with piles of
scrap and garbage, was now a garden. The men who lived in the building,
after they came home from work, had rid the yard of the refuse. Even several
of the ones who didn't work had come out of their rooms to help cart away an
item or two. After it was cleared out,- the women of the building had turned
the soil and planted a garden. They were going to have vegetables.
Vegetables! There was talk of getting a few chickens.
The single latrine off in the back corner, so overused and so foul, was
now two privies in good repair. Now, there was rarely a wait to use a privy
and there were no more urgent pleas or frayed tempers. Kamil and Nabbi had
helped Richard build them-partly out of scraps of lumber salvaged from the
refuse piles in the yard, before they were hauled away, and some they
collected from other rubbish heaps.
Nicci had hardly believed her eyes when she had seen Kamil and Nabbi-in
shirts---digging the holes for the new privies. Everyone thanked them
profusely. The two toughs beamed with pride.
The outdoor cooking hearth had been repaired, so the women could set
more pots in it and cook at the same time, requiring less wood to be hauled.
Richard and some of the other men of the building built stands for the
washtubs, so the wives wouldn't have to bend so far or chafe their knees
raw. The men made a simple roof of canvas salvaged from the refuse so that
the women could cook and wash without getting wet when it rained.
The people in the buildings to either side, at first surly and
suspicious of the activity, began asking curt questions. Richard, Kamil, and
Nabbi went over and explained what they had done, and how they could put
their place in shape, too, and even helped them get started. Nicci had
yelled at Richard for spending his time at
other people's places. He said that she was the one who had told him
that it was his duty to help others. Nicci had no answer-at least, none that
made any sense so as she could say it aloud and not sound a fool.
When Richard showed people how to improve their homes, he didn't
lecture, or teach, but rather, somehow-Nicci couldn't understand how-managed
to infect them with his enthusiasm. He hadn't told them what to do, but
rather he'd made them pant to figure out for themselves how they could make
things better for themselves. Everybody took a liking to Richard. It made
her growl under her breath.
Nicci collected her washing in the woven basket Richard had shown the
women of the building how to make from thin strips of wood. Nicci had to
admit that the basket was easy enough to make, and a better way to lug
clothes.
She climbed the sturdy stairs-stairs that she'd once thought would be
the end of her. The hallway inside was spotless. The floors had been washed.
Somewhere; Richard had come up with ingredients for paint, and the men had a
grand time of mixing it up and painting over the stains on the walls. One of
the men in the building knew about roofs, so he fixed the roof so it
wouldn't leak and stain the walls again.
As Nicci walked down the hall, she saw Gadi, without his shirt, sitting
up the stairway, in the shadows. He was using his big knife to whittle at a
piece of wood and in so doing make clear his dangerous nature. Later, the
women living i31 the building would tsk and clean it up. Gadi, not happy
about people nagging at him of late, leered down at her. She now had
something for him to leer at, now that she had gained her weight back.
Richard's second job at night enabled him to be able to afford more
food. He brought home things she had missed for months-chicken, oil, spices,
bacon, cheese, and eggs. She could never find such things in the city
stores, Nicci had thought they sold the same food everywhere in the city
shops, but Richard's travels while delivering things, he said, took him to
places where they sold a wider variety of food.
Kamil and Nabbi, sitting on the front steps, saw her through the open
door. They stood and bowed politely as she came down the hall.
"Good evening, Mrs. Cypher," Kamil said.
"Could we help you carry that?" Nabbi asked.
She found it all the more irritating because she knew for a fact that
they were sincere; they liked her because she was Richard's wife.
"Thank you, no. I'm there, now."
They held the door for her and closed it behind her when she had passed
into her room.
She thought of them as Richard's soldiers. He seemed to have a private
army of people who broke into grins when they saw him coming. Most people
seemed only too pleased to do whatever they thought Richard might like done.
Kamil and Nabbi would have washed diapers, if he asked it, for the chance to
ride with him at night in the wagon as he picked up and delivered things
around Altur'Rang. He only rarely took them with him, saying that he could
get in trouble with the workers' group. The youths didn't want Richard to
get in trouble and lose his job, so they patiently waited for the rare times
when he tilted his head for them to come along.
Their room had been transformed. The ceiling had been cleaned and
whitewashed. The flyblown walls had been scrubbed and painted a salmon
color-a color she had picked, thinking that Richard would not possibly be
able to come up with the rare ingredients needed for the color. The walls
were now mockingly salmon.
One day a man had shown up with an armload of tools. Kamil said that
Richard had sent him over to fix their room. The man spoke a language Nicci
didn't understand. He waved his arms a lot and chattered and laughed
good-naturedly, as if she must understand at least a little of what he told
her. He pointed around at walls and asked questions. She hadn't the foggiest
notion of what he was there to do.
She suspected he had come to fix the wobbly table. She rapped the top
with the flat of her hand and then showed him how it wobbled. He nodded and
grinned and chattered. She finally left him to his work while she went to
the city store to wait in line to buy bread. She was there the entire
morning. In the afternoon, she waited in line for millet.
When Nicci finally returned home, the man was gone. The old window,
broken and not only long painted over but also painted shut, had new glass,
and it was raised. And, they had a new window in the other wall. Both
windows were open. A cool cross-breeze let fresh air into the stuffy room.
Nicci stood in the center of the room, stunned to be looking through
the window to the building next door. She gaped out the window in the wall
where there had been no window before. She was able to see the street. Mrs.
Sha'Rim, from next door, had smiled and waved as she'd walked past.
Nicci set down the wash basket and opened the window at the side, to
get some air into the stifling room. She pushed the curtains back. With
windows you could see though, she had decided that curtains were in order.
Richard somehow got her fabric. When she was finished, he told her she had
done a wonderful job. Nicci found herself grinning just as everyone else
grinned when Richard told them they had done well.
She had brought Richard to the worst place in the Old World, to the
worst build
ing she could find, and he somehow ended up making everything better
just as she had insisted was his duty.
But she had never meant it to be like this.
She didn't know what she'd meant.
She only knew that she lived for the times Richard was with her. Even
though she knew he hated her, and wanted nothing more than to be away from
her and back with his Kahlan, Nicci could not help feeling her heart rise
into her throat when he came home. Through the link to Kahlan, she thought
that at times she could feel the woman's longing for him. Every inch of her
ached with understanding of Kahlan's longing.
The room grew darker as she waited. Life didn't start until Richard
came home. As the daylight faded, the lamplight took its place. They had a
real lamp, now, not just a wick through a wooden button floating in linseed
oil.
The door opened. Richard put one foot inside. He was speaking to Kamil
as the young man was going off to his family's place upstairs. It was
getting late. Finally, still smiling, Richard came in and shut the door. The
smile faded, as it always did.
He held out a burlap sack. "I came across some onions, carrots, and
some pork. I thought you might like to make a stew."
Nicci lifted a hand weekly toward the millet she had spent the
afternoon in line to buy. It had bugs in it. It was moldy.
"I bought millet. I thought I would make you a soup."
Richard shrugged. "If you prefer. Your millet soup saw us through some
pretty lean times."
Nicci felt that flash of pride that he had acknowledged what she had
done as valuable.
She shut the windows. It was dark out. With her back to the windows as
she watched him, she closed the curtains tight.
Richard stood in the center of the room, watching her, a puzzled frown
creasing his brow between his eyes. Nicci closed the distance to him. She
was aware of the exposed flesh of her bosom rising and falling above the top
of her black dress. Gadi had just been staring at her bosom. She wanted
Richard to stare at her like that. Richard watched only her eyes.
Her fingers tightened around his muscled arms.
"Make love to me," she whispered.
His brow drew down. "What?"
"Richard, I want you to make love to me. Now."
He appraised her eyes for an eternity. Her heart thundered in her ears.
Every fiber of her being screamed out for him to take her. She teetered on
the edge, waiting, her life suspended in the exquisite anguish of
expectation.
His voice came, not at all harsh. If anything, it was tender, but it
was also resolute. "No."
Nicci felt as if a thousand needles of ice were dancing up her arms.
His refusal stunned her. No man had ever refused her.
It hurt to her core--worse than anything Jagang or any other man had
ever done. She had thought . . .
Blood rushed to her face, melting the ice in a flash of heat. Nicci
flung open the door. "Come out into the hall and wait," she commanded in a
shaky voice.
He was standing in the center of their room, looking into her eyes. The
lamp on the table cast harsh shadows across his face. His shoulders looked
so broad, tapering down to his waist, a waist she ached to encircle with her
arms. She wanted to scream. Instead she spoke softly, but with authority he
could not mistake.
"You will come out into the hall and wait, or. . ."
Nicci made a snipping gesture with two fingers.
By the look in his eyes, he knew that she was not bluffing. Kahlan's
life now hung by a thread, and if he didn't do as she ordered, she would not
hesitate to cut that thread.
With his gray eyes on her the whole time, Richard stepped out into the
hall. She put a finger to the center of his chest and pushed until his back
was against the wall beside their door.
"You are to wait right there, on that spot, until I tell you that you
may move from it." She gritted her teeth. "Or Kahlan will die. Do you
understand?"
"Nicci, you're better than this. Think about what you're-"
"Or Kahlan will die. Do you understand?"
He let out a breath. "Yes."
Nicci marched to the stairwell. Gadi stood halfway up the stairs, his
dark eyes watching. He arrogantly descended toward her, until he was at the
bottom with her. He had a fine form, she supposed, displayed as it was
without a shirt. He was close enough to feel the heat of him.
Nicci looked him in the eye. He was the same height as she.
"I want you to have sex with me."
"What?"
"My husband does not adequately take care of my needs. I wish you to."
A smirk spread on his face as his gaze slid to Richard. He looked back
at her bosom, at what was within his power to possess.
Gadi was young and bold and stupid enough to believe himself
irresistible to her, to believe his puerile primping had swept away her
inhibitions to the point of helpless lust for what he had to offer.
One arm pulled her to him. With his other hand, he swept her hair out
of the way. His thin lips kissed her neck. When his teeth raked her flesh,
she moaned to encourage him to be rough. The last thing in the world she
wanted was tenderness. There could be no retribution in tenderness.
Tenderness would not cleave Richard's soul with anguish. Tenderness would
not hurt him.
Gadi's hands squeezed her bottom, pulling her hard against his groin.
He moved against her in a lewd fashion. She panted in his ear to encourage
his confidence in his dominion over her body.
"Tell me why."
"I'm sick of his gentle nature, his kind touch, his caring ways. That's
not what a real woman needs. I want him to know what a real man can do-I
want what he can't give me."
She nearly cried out in pain when he twisted her nipple.
"Yeah?"
"Yes. I want what a real man like you can do for a woman."
His rough hands squeezed her breast. She performed another moan. He
smiled.
"My pleasure."
His smirk sickened her. "No, mine," she whispered in breathy
submission.
He cast one more hateful glare at Richard, then bent to slip a hand up
the front of her dress to see if she really meant it, if she would really
let him have his way with her. His hand slid up the inside of her bare
thigh, commanding surrender. She obediently parted her legs for him.
Nicci held on to his shoulders as he groped her. His upper lip curled
in a haughty grin. His fingers worked without mercy. Her eyes watered. She
trembled and bit the inside of her cheek to hold back her cry. Mistaking
agony for lust, he was inflamed by her whimpers.
Jagang and his friend Kadar Kardeef, to name but a few, took her
without her consent. None of it had ever approached the sense of violation
she felt at that moment as she stood there in the hall letting that smirking
little thug do to her as he would.
She forced her hand down between them and seized him.
"Gadi, are you afraid of Richard? Are are you man enough to take me
while he is outside the room, listening to us, knowing you are his better
with me?"
"Afraid? Of him?" His voice came in a husky growl. "Just tell me when."
"Right now. I need it from you now, Gadi."
"I thought so."
Nicci smiled inwardly at his solemn look of lust.
"Say `please,' first, you little whore."
"Please." She ached only to crush his worthless skull. "Please, Gadi."
With his arm around her waist, Gadi gave Richard a taunting sneer as he
swaggered past. Nicci's fingers on Gadi's back urged him to go on into their
room and wait. He smiled over his shoulder and did as she wanted. Nicci
paused to glare into Richard's eyes.
"We are linked. What happens to me, happens to her. I hope you are not
foolish enough to think I wouldn't make you sorry for the rest of your days
if you don't stay right there. I swear to you, she will die this night if
you don't stay there."
"Nicci, please don't do this. You're only hurting yourself."
His voice was so tender, so compassionate. She almost threw her arms
around him to beg him to stop her . . . but the flame of his refusal still
burned shamefully in her heart.
Nicci turned back from the doorway and gave Richard a vicious grin. "I
hope your Kahlan enjoys this as much as I'm going to enjoy it. After
tonight, she will never believe in you again."
--]----
Kahlan gasped. Her eyes opened. She could only make out obscure shapes
in the swirling darkness. She gasped again.
A feeling she couldn't define, couldn't interpret, couldn't put a
nature to, welled up in her. It was something totally foreign, yet at the
same time bewitchingly familiar. Something inappropriate, yet longed for. It
filled her with a kind of passionate terror that undulated seductively to
indecent pleasure, pushing before it a sense of shapeless dread.
She felt the weight of a shadow over her.
Feelings and sensations she could not grasp or control inundated her
even as she fought them. Nothing seemed real. She gasped again at the crude
sensation. It confused her. It hurt, and at the same time she felt a kind of
wild hunger awakening.
It was as if Richard were there, in bed with her. It felt so good
again. She was panting. Her mouth was dry as dust.
In Richard's intimate embrace she had always felt a kind of expectant
delight that their shameless lust could never be completely sated-that there
was always a spark of something left to explore, to reach toward, to define.
She had always exalted in the idea of that endless quest for the
unattainable.
She drew a sharp breath. She felt herself in that headlong rush, now.
But this was something she had never imagined. Her fists clutched at
the sheets, her mouth opened in a silent scream against the ripping thrust
of pain.
This was not human. It made no sense. She gasped again in panic as the
most awful feelings burgeoned through her. She moaned at the horror of it,
at the hint of pleasure in it, and at the confusion of nearly enjoying the
sensation.
The realization came to her. She knew what this meant.
Tears stung her eyes. She rolled onto her side, torn between the joy of
feeling Richard, and the pain of knowing that Nicci was feeling him in this
way, too. She was slammed onto her back.
She gasped again, her eyes going wide, her whole body rigid.
She cried out at the pain. She twisted and struggled, covering her
breasts with her arms. Her eyes watered at agony she couldn't explain or
completely identify.
She missed Richard so much. She wanted him so badly it hurt.
She gave in to him, even in this, she surrendered herself to him. A low
wail escaped her throat.
Her muscles knotted as tight as oak roots. She was racked with wave
after wave of startling pain mixed with an unsatisfied longing that had
turned to revulsion. She couldn't get her breath.
She burst into tears as it ceased, her body finally able to move again,
but too exhausted to do so. She had hated every violent appalling brutal
second of it, and grieved that it had ended because she had at least felt
him.
She felt joy that she had so unexpectedly sensed him, and blind rage at
what it meant. She clutched the sheets in her fists as she wept
inconsolably.
"Mother Confessor?" A dark form slipped into the tent. "Mother
Confessor?"
It was Cara's whisper. Cara set a candle on the table. The light seemed
blindingly bright as Cara looked down. "Mother Confessor, are you all
right?"
Kahlan pulled a ragged breath. She was lying on her back in her bed,
tangled in her blanket. It was twisted around between her legs.
Maybe it was just a dream. She wished it was. She knew it wasn't.
Kahlan ran her fingers back into her hair as she sat up. "Cara-" It
came out as a choking sob.
Cara knelt on the ground beside her and gripped Kahlan's shoulders.
"What is it?"
Kahlan struggled to get her breath.
"What's wrong? What can I do? Are you hurt? Are you sick?"
"Oh, Cara . . . he's been with Nicci."
Cara held her at arms length, her face a picture of concern.
"What are you talking about? Who's been-"
Her words cut off when she realized what Kahlan meant.
Kahlan struggled against Cara's grip. "How could he-"
"She no doubt made him," Cara insisted. "He must have done it to save
your life. She would have had to threaten him."
Kahlan was shaking her head. "No, no. He was enjoying it too much. He
was like an animal. He never took me like that. He never acted . . . Oh,
Cara, he's fallen for her. He couldn't resist her any longer. He's-"
Cara shook her until Kahlan thought her teeth would come loose.
"Wake up! Open your eyes. Mother Confessor, wake up. You're half
asleep. You're still half dreaming."
Kahlan blinked as she looked around. She was panting, still getting her
breath. She had stopped crying.
Cara was right. It had happened, there was no doubt in Kahlan's mind,
but it had happened when she was sleeping, and in her sleep, it had taken
her unaware. She hadn't reacted rationally.
"You're right," Kahlan said in a voice hoarse from crying. Her nose was
stuffed up so that she could only breath through her mouth.
"Now," Cara said in a calm voice, "tell me what happened."
When she felt her face go red, Kahlan wished for the darkness. How
could she tell anyone what had happened? She wished Cara hadn't heard her.
"Well, through the link"-Kahlan swallowed-"I could sense that, that,
well, that Richard made love to Nicci."
Cara looked skeptical. "Did it feel like when, well, I mean, are you
sure? Could you tell it was him?"
Kahlan felt her face go a darker shade of red. "Not exactly, I guess. I
don't know." She covered her breasts. "I could feel his . . . his teeth on
me. He was biting .."
Cara scratched her head, averting her gaze, unsure how to frame her
question. Kahlan answered it for her.
"Richard never hurt me like that."
"Oh. Well then, it wasn't Richard."
"What do you mean it wasn't Richard? It had to be Richard."
"Did it? Would Richard want to make love to Nicci?"
"Cara-she could make him. Threaten him."
"Do you think Nicci is an honorable person?"
Kahlan frowned. "Nicci? Are you out of your mind?"
"There you go, then. Why must it be Richard? Nicci may have simply
found some man she had to have-some handsome farmboy. It could be nothing
more than that."
"Really? You think so?"
"You said it didn't seem like Richard. I mean, you were half asleep,
and in . . . shock. You said he never. . ."
Kahlan looked away. "No, I suppose not." She looked back at the
Mord-Sith in the dim light. "I'm sorry, Cara. Thank you for being here with
me. I'd not have liked it if it had been Zedd, or someone else. Thank you."
Cara smiled. "I think we'd best keep this between the two of us."
Kahlan nodded gratefully. "If Zedd ever started in asking all his
detailed questions about this, well, I'd die of embarrassment."
Kahlan realized then that Cara was wrapped in a blanket that was open
in the front enough to reveal that she was naked underneath. There was a
dark mark on the upper half of her breast. There were a few more, but faint.
Kahlan had seen Cara naked, and didn't recall there being any such mark on
her. In fact, except for her scars, her body was exasperatingly perfect.
Frowning, Kahlan gestured. "Cara, what's that there?"
Cara glanced down and then threw the blanket closed.
"It's, I mean, well, it's . . . just a bruise."
A love bruise-from a man's mouth.
"Is Benjamin over there in your tent with you?"
Cara got to her bare feet. "Mother Confessor, you are still half asleep
and having dreams. Go back to sleep."
Kahlan smiled as she watched Cara leave. The smile faded as she lay
back in her bed. In the quiet loneliness, her doubts crept back.
She cupped her breasts. Her nipples throbbed and ached. As she moved on
the bed a little, she winced as she only then began to realize how much she
hurt, and where.
She couldn't believe that, even in her sleep, a part of it had been . .
. She felt her face reddening again. She felt an overwhelming sense of shame
at what she had done.
No. She had done nothing. She was only sensing something through her
link to Nicci. It wasn't real. She hadn't really experienced it-Nicci had.
But Kahlan suffered the same injuries.
As she had at various times, Kahlan still felt that connection to Nicci
through the link, and an aching sort of caring about the woman. What had
happened left Kahlan feeling saddened. She felt that Nicci had so
desperately wanted . . . something.
Kahlan slipped her hand down between her legs. She flinched in pain as
she touched herself. She brought her fingers up to the candlelight. They
glistened with blood. There was a lot of blood.
Despite the burning pain of being torn inside, the confused
embarrassment, and the shadow of shame, she most of all felt a sense of
relief.
She knew without doubt: Cara was right, it had not been Richard.
Ann peered among the stand of birch trees crowded in the deep shadows
of cliffs for which the place was named. The dense wood was thick with the
trees, their peeling white bark covered with dark blotches making it
disorienting and difficult to make sense of anything. To become disoriented,
here, and wander into the wrong place, uninvited, was the last mistake you
would ever make.
It had been in her youth that she'd last come here, to the Healers of
Redcliff. She'd promised herself she would never return She'd promised the
healers as much, too. In the nearly thousand years since, she hoped they had
forgotten.
Few people knew of the place, and even fewer ever came hero--with good
reason.
The term "healers" was an odd and highly misleading designation for
such a dangerous lot, yet it wasn't entirely without merit. The Healers of
Redcliff weren't concerned with human ailments, but with the well-being of
things that mattered to them. And very odd things indeed mattered to them.
To tell the truth of it, after all this time, she would be surprised to find
them still in existence.
As much as she hoped their talents could help, and as desperately as
she needed help, she hoped to find that the healers no longer stalked the
Redcliff Wood.
"Visitooor. . ." hissed a teasing voice from the dim shadows in the
crags of the cliff off behind the trees.
Ann stood still. Cold sweat dotted her brow. Among the confusion of
lines and spots made by the trees, she could not make out what it was she
saw move. She didn't really need to see them. She had heard the voice. There
were no others like theirs. She swallowed, and tried to sound composed.
"Yes, I am a visitor. I'm glad to find you well."
"Only us few left," the voice said, echoing among the rock walls. "The
chiiiimes took most."
That was what Ann had feared . . . what she had hoped.
"I'm sorry," she lied.
"Tried," the voice said, moving through the trees. "Could not heal the
chiiiimes away."
She wondered if they could still heal at all, and how long they would
last.
"Comes sheeee for a healings?" teased a voice from the depths of the
jagged clefts to the other side.
"Come to let you look," she said, letting them know she had terms, too.
It would not be all their way.
"Costssss, you know."
Ann nodded. "Yes, I know."
She had tried everything else. Nothing had worked. She had no other
choice, at
least none she could think of. She was no longer sure if it mattered to
her what happened, if it mattered if she ever came out of the Redcliff Wood.
She was no longer sure if she had ever done any real good in her entire
life.
"Well?" she asked into the shadowy silence.
Something flashed back behind the trees, back in the shade under low
rock ledges, as if inviting her further along the path, deeper into the
twisting cleft in the mountains. Rubbing her knuckles, which still ached
from the burns long healed, she followed the path, and the rustle of brush.
Shortly, she came to a small gap its the trees. Back through that gap, she
could see the craggy opening of a cave.
Eyes watched from that dark maw.
"Comes sheeee in," the voice hissed.
In resignation, Ann let out a sigh as she stepped off the trail, and
into a place she had never forgotten, despite how much she had tried.
--]----
Kahlan's hair whipped around, lashing at her face. She gathered it in a
fist over the front of her armored shoulder as she made her way through the
hectic camp. Thunderstorms collided violently with the mountains at the east
side of the valley, throwing off lightning, thunder, and intermittent sheets
of rain. Sporadic gusts bent the trees, and their leaves shimmered as if
trembling in fright before the onslaught.
Usually, the camp was relatively quiet so as not to give any unwanted
information to the enemy. Now, the noise of camp breaking up was jarring by
contrast. The noise alone was enough to make her pulse race. If only that
were all.
As Kahlan hurried through what to the untrained eye would look like
mass confusion, Cara, in her red leather, shoved men out of the way to break
a clear path for the Mother Confessor. Kahlan knew better than to try to get
the Mord-Sith not to do it. At least it caused no harm. Most of the men,
when they saw Kahlan in her leather armor with a D'Haran sword at her hip
and the hilt of the Sword of Truth sticking up over her shoulder, moved out
of her way without Cam's help.
Horses nearby reared as they were being harnessed to a wagon. Men
shouted and cursed as they struggled to get the team under control. The
horses bellowed in protest. Other men ran through camp, leaping over fires
and gear as they rushed to deliver messages. Men sprang out of the way as
wagons sped along, splashing mud and water. A long column of lancers five
men wide was already marching off into the threatening gloom. Their
supporting archers were scrambling to fall in with them.
The path to the lodge was set with stones so people heading for it
would not have to walk in the mud, though one still had to run the gauntlet
of mosquitoes. Rain swept in just as Kahlan and Cara made the door. Zedd was
there, with Adie, General Meiffert and several of his officers, Verna, and
Warren. They were all loosely gathered around the table pulled to the center
of the room. Half a dozen maps lay atop one another on the table.
The mood in the room was tense.
"How long ago?" Kahlan asked without any greetings.
"Just now," General Meiffert said. "They're taking their time striking
camp. They're not organizing for an attack. They're simply forming up to
move out."
Kahlan rubbed her fingertips against her brow. "Any word on the
direction?"
The general shifted his posture, betraying his frustration. "The scouts
say that by all indications they're going north, but nothing more specific
than that, yet."
"They aren't coming after us?"
"They could always change course, or send an army over here, but right
now, it appears they aren't interested in coming in here after us."
"Jagang doesn't need to come after us," Warren said. Kahlan thought he
looked a little pale. Small wonder. She imagined they were all a little
pale. "Jagang has to know we are going to come at him: He's not going to
bother coming in here after us."
Kahlan couldn't dispute his logic. "If he goes north, he has to know
we're not going to sit here and wave good-bye."
The emperor had changed his tactics-again. Kahlan had never seen a
commander like him. Most military men had their preferred methods. If they
had once won a battle in a certain way, they would suffer a dozen losses
with the same tactics, thinking it had to work because it once had. Some
were limited by their intellect. Those were easy enough to read; they
usually waged an artless campaign, content to throw men into a meat grinder,
hoping to clog it with sheer numbers. Some leaders were clever, inventing
tactics as they went. Those often thought too much of themselves and ended
up on the point of a simple pike. Others slavishly went about using textbook
tactics, thinking of war as a kind of game, and that each side should oblige
the other by following rules.
Jagang was different. He learned to read his enemy. He held to no
favored method. After Kahlan had hit him with quick limited attacks driven
into the center of his camp, he learned the tactic and, instead of relying
on his overpowering numbers, sent the same kind of attack back at the
D'Haran army to good effect. Some men could be driven to making foolish
mistakes by shaming them. Jagang didn't make the same mistake twice. He
reined in his pride and changed his tactics again, not obliging Kahlan with
foolhardy counterattacks.
The D'Harans had still managed to carve him up. They had taken out
Imperial Order troops in unprecedented numbers. Their own losses, while
painful, were remarkably low considering what they had accomplished.
Winter, though, had killed far more of the enemy than anything Kahlan
and her men could conceive. The Imperial Order, being from far to the south,
was unfamiliar with and ill prepared for winter in the New World. Well over
half a million men had frozen to death. Several hundred thousand more had
succumbed to fevers and sickness from the harsh life in the field.
The winter alone had cost Jagang nearly three-quarters of a million
men. It was almost beyond comprehension.
Kahlan now commanded roughly three hundred thousand troops in the
southern reaches of the Midlands. Under ordinary circumstances, that would
be a force capable of crushing any enemy.
The men streaming up from the Old World had replaced the enemy losses
several times over. Jagang's army was now well over two and a half million
men. It grew by the day.
Jagang had been content to sit tight for the winter. Fighting in such
conditions was, for the most part, impossible. He had wisely waited out the
weather. When spring had come, he still sat. Apparently, he was smart enough
to know that warfare in spring mud was a deadly undertaking. In the muddy
season, you could lose your supply wagons if they got strung out. Streams
became impassable floods. Losing
wagons was a slow death by starvation. Cavalry were next to useless in
the mud. Losses to falls in a cavalry charge cost valuable mounts, to say
nothing of the men. Soldiers could make an attack, of course, but without
supporting services, it was likely to be a bloodbath for no real gain.
Jagang had sat out the spring mud. His minions had used the time to
spread the word about "Jagang the Just." Kahlan was infuriated when she got
reports, weeks after the fact, about "envoys of peace" who had shown up in
various cities throughout the Midlands, giving speeches about bringing the
world together for the good of all mankind. They promised piece and
prosperity, if they were welcomed into cities.
Now, with summer finally upon them, Jagang was beginning his campaign
anew. He planned his troops to now visit those cities his envoys had been
to.
The door burst open. It was not the wind, but Rikka. The Mord-Sith
looked like she hadn't slept in days.
Cara went to her side, to be ready to offer assistance if requested,
but didn't directly lend a hand for support. A Mord-Sith did not look
favorably upon help in front of others.
Rikka stepped up to the table, opposite Kahlan, and tossed two Agiel
down atop the map.
Kahlan closed her eyes for a moment, then looked up into Rikka's fierce
blue eyes. "What happened?"
"I don't know, Mother Confessor. I found their heads impaled on pikes.
Their Agiel were tied to the pikes."
Kahlan held her anger in check. "Are you satisfied, now, Rikka?"
"Galina and Solvig died as Mord-Sith would want to die."
"Galina and Solvig died for nothing, Rikka. After the first four, we
knew it wouldn't work. With the dream walker in their minds, the gifted are
not vulnerable to Mord-Sith in the way that would otherwise be the case."
"It could have been something else. If we can catch their gifted where
the MordSith can get at them, then we might be able to take them out. It's
worth the risk. Their gifted can cut down thousands of soldiers with a sweep
of their hand."
"I understand the wish, Rikka. Wishing, however, does not make it
possible. We have six dead Mord-Sith to show us the reality of what is. We
will not throw away the lives of any more because we refuse to recognize the
truth of it."
"I still think-"
"Those of us here have important things to decide; I don't have time
for this." Kahlan put her fists on the table and leaned toward the woman. "I
am the Mother Confessor, and the wife to Lord Rahl. You will do as I say or
you will leave. Do you understand?"
Rikka's blue eyes shifted to Cara. Cara stood as expressive as a stone.
Rikka looked back at Kahlan and let out a long sigh.
"I wish to remain with our forces and do my duty."
"Fine. Now, go get yourself something to eat while you still have a